


Listen While You Can

by ShamanicShaymin



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Can Be Interpreted as Sallary If You Wish, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming Out, Explicit Language, FTM Larry Johnson, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Gen, Navigating Transphobia in the 90s, No Sex, Not so much when he randomly disappears, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sometimes it helps when your dad is an alien, Supportive Sal Fisher, Trans Larry Johnson, Trans Male Character, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25016752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShamanicShaymin/pseuds/ShamanicShaymin
Summary: Sal gets the courage to ask Larry if they could have a sleepover together. But it takes Larry more courage to tell Sal his deepest secret... a secret more personal than his “curse.” Takes place between Episodes 2 & 3.
Relationships: Sal Fisher & Larry Johnson - Relationship
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Listen While You Can

**Author's Note:**

> This is more or less a ventfic—I had read J.K. Rowling’s horrendous TERF manifesto and it got me so furious that this fic ended up pouring out of me. Trans Larry is a headcanon I had been thinking about for a while (even if Jim’s notes in-game joss the hell out of it, I don’t care. It’s fanfic, I can do what I want. :p) and it seemed good as any time to explore it. The title comes from “a softer world” quote.
> 
> Special thanks to my sensitivity reader for betaing and helping me out regarding factoids of being a transman in the 1990s. :)

Sal hadn’t been to a sleepover in years. It wasn’t just the fear of being seen without his prosthetic, though it was certainly part of the reason. It was the chronic nightmares that woke him screaming in the middle of the night—as if he needed _another_ reason to feel like shit for scaring the fuck out of his friends. It was better to not go out than go out, end up traumatizing someone with your trauma, then be rejected from ever going out again.

But Larry… Larry was the best friend he ever had. He never flinched from his nightmares, nor got tired of hearing about them—he even confided that he suffered from his own. They did whatever they could to help each other, even if talk was all they could do. He could talk to Larry about anything: his mother’s death, his father’s drinking, his fear of dogs, his love of music, his video game strategies, his latest theory regarding Twine Parks.

Since meeting Megan, Larry was much more open to hearing about his conversations with the ghosts of Addison Apartments—he was nervous at first when Sal brought up Mrs. Sanderson, but when he told him that she was glad he was safe and didn’t get discovered by Charley, he nearly cried.

“Tell her I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything to save her.” He choked out.

That was the other thing… Larry was compassionate. The Mask Incident played again and again in Sally’s mind like a tape set to rewind: Larry’s laughter. Larry’s bloody nose. Larry’s concern. The whole time, Larry never looked away.

If Larry had anything to tell him that he felt would repulse him, Sal wouldn’t look away either.

~

“So uh… I was wondering… would it be all right if I spent the night here?” Sal asked.

“You mean like… a sleepover?” Larry replied.

“Yeah! We could watch movies and rock out to music and play video games together. You know, the stuff we always do. I-I think it’d be fun.”

It seemed like an innocent enough question. Yet Larry looked troubled, as though he was seeing something far past Sal. The dark bags beneath his eyes stood out more than usual, like he had aged another thirty years.

“Y-Yeah…” the metalhead murmured. “It would.”

“Hey Larry, are you okay? I’m sorry if I offended you. I guess it’s a bit too soon for a sleepover, huh?”

“No, it’s not that. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Larry sighed. “Look, I… I need to tell you something important. You must promise not to tell anyone else. Not a living soul… hell, not a ghost for that matter. I don’t want this going out where anyone could hear.”

“I promise, Larry. Cross my heart.”

“Heh. You’ve been good at keeping my other secrets… I think I can trust you with this one.”

“Believe me, I’ll carry this to my grave. I’ll bury it even further than six feet under so no one will ever know.”

Larry took a deep breath before sitting down in his bean bag chair. Normally he tucked his arms behind his head, but this time, he dug his hands deeper into his pockets.

“So um… have you heard of the term transgender?”

“Hmm... not really?”

“It means your gender doesn’t match your sex.”

“I guess my Dad thought I might have been once? I’m fine with being a guy, though.”

“I see…” Larry contemplated this. “Well, I’ll cut straight to the point. I wasn’t always Larry. When I was born, I was considered a girl. Birth certificate even said so and everything. So if you see pics of me as a baby and I’m in a pink blanket or dress or diaper or something, that’s why.”

“I see… why did everyone think you were a girl?” Sal asked. “Who were you then?”

“I-I’d rather not say.” Larry winced, as though Sal had cut him with a knife.

“I’m sorry about that.” Sal said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please go on.”

“So… according to genes and such, I’m a girl. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck, right? Except I felt like the ugliest duckling on earth, man. Nothing... felt right. As I got older, the feeling only got worse. I identified with my Dad more than my Mom. I wanted to do boy things. I wanted to grow a beard like Dad, and when I was told girls can’t have beards, I couldn’t stop crying. I was miserable for reasons I didn’t understand.”

“That’s got to be awful.” Sal said. “I can’t imagine growing up like that, not knowing what’s wrong.”

“At first, all the teachers and adults passed it off as a phase. Oh, I’m just sad, I’ll get over it, they said. I’ll learn to ‘embrace my womanhood’ or whatever the fuck that means. But it’s not like I was a tomboy, you know? I don’t hate girls. I’m not ashamed of them. I don’t mind liking girly stuff now and then. It’s just… it’s not _me,_ you know? Things got so bad I started getting bullied for it, and of course the teachers did jack shit. Going to the bathroom was a fucking nightmare: either I went in the girls’ bathroom and got snide comments ripping me and my self worth to pieces, or I went to the boys’ bathroom and got beat up.”

“Oof, I feel you on the bathroom front.” Sal sympathized. “I mean, maybe not exactly in the same way. But it’s like you can’t win, you know? I’ve been called a peeping tom if I use the girls’ bathroom, but if I go in the boys’ bathroom, I get shit on for my pigtails and long hair and beaten black and blue. I’m not trying to fool anyone, you know? And I don’t want to creep on any girls! I just want to take a piss in peace.”

“Exactly!” Larry exclaimed. “Anyway… my Dad figured it out. I don’t know how the hell he knew, but he said being transgender was normal and more common than people think. He told my Mom, and it took her a while to get used to the idea… but she wanted to do whatever it takes to make me happy. Even after my Dad went missing, she fought like hell to get my records changed. It took forever because everyone else figured I was just depressed from juvie and school and Dad disappearing, and if I took my meds I’d stop ‘wanting to be a boy.’ But after a million conversations with a dozen therapists and jumping through enough fucking hoops set on fire, I finally got to start taking testosterone.”

“That’s wonderful! I’m glad Lisa did all that for you.” Sal said. “Honestly, I can’t imagine you as a girl. You’ve always been Larry to me.”

“Heh… thanks Sal.” A small sad smile formed on Larry’s lips. “That means a lot to me.”

“Have you told anyone else about this?”

“Ash and Todd know.” Larry said. “And a couple people I _thought_ were my friends. They said they were cool with it, but they haven’t spoken to me since then. It could just be my paranoia talking, but whenever we run into each other and say hello, they seem… kind of weirded out. And then they come up with some kind of excuse to leave.”

“...May I hold you?” Sal asked.

“Um, sure?” Larry blinked. “I mean, it’s no big deal. I don’t think about them that often, I—!” His eyes widened as Sally embraced him.

“I won’t _ever_ leave you.” Sal lay his head on his chest, his arms full of love. “You are my best friend.”

“...You’re mine too, Sal.” Larry murmured, his eyes watering. He removed his hands from his pockets to hug him back.

“So… was there anything you were worried about from me staying over?”

“Oh, that! It’s just that most pajamas are too hot for me, and I didn’t want you to freak out at my binder. I didn’t want to be uncomfortable and hate myself and my body again, so I thought I should let you know in advance.”

“I understand.” Sal nodded. “It gets too stuffy for me to wear my prosthetic to bed. I hope you’re prepared that I snore like a foghorn.”

“Ha! Ash has stories about how bad my snoring is. You can’t out-snore me!”

“We’ll see about that, Larry Johnson!” Sal declared. “So… I’ll take it as a yes?”

“Yeah! Just let me talk to my Mom and I’ll let you know how it goes. Then if it’s okay, you can bring your stuff and come right on down!”

“Awesome! I’ll ask my Dad too.” Sal let go of Larry and got up from the beanbag chair. “Any movie in particular you want to see?”

“Surprise me, dude.”

“Gotcha. I’ll bring the Super Gear Boy and some games too.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Larry grinned, showing off the gap in his teeth. “Hope to hear from you on the walky-talky soon!”

“See ya!”

Once Lisa and Henry had given the okay, Sally brought down his things and celebrated his first sleepover with Larry, starting off with a good headbanging to Sanity’s Fall. They painted together. They raced each other in Mario Kart and argued whether or not the other cheated. They laughed their asses off at the poor special effects and cheesy dialogue of an Ed Wood monster movie. Finally, they lay side by side in their sleeping bags—Sal without his mask and Larry with his binder—and they never felt safer in each other’s company.

Their fingers entwined before they drifted off to sleep.


End file.
